DUSHANBE, December 17, 2013, Asia-Plus — Population growth, agricultural expansion, and the rise of globe-spanning food supply chains have dramatically altered how diseases emerge, jump species boundaries, and spread, according to an FAO report released on December 16.
The report notes that a new, more holistic approach to managing disease threats at the animal-human-environment interface is needed.
Seventy percent of the new diseases that have emerged in humans over recent decades are of animal origin and, in part, directly related to the human quest for more animal-sourced food, according to the report,
World Livestock 2013: Changing Disease Landscapes
.
FAO”s new study focuses in particular on how changes in the way humans raise and trade animals have affected how disease emerge and spread.
The report provides a number of compelling reasons for taking a new tack on disease emergence.
Developing countries face a staggering burden of human, zoonotic and livestock diseases, it says, creating a major impediment to development and food safety. Recurrent epidemics in livestock affect food security, livelihoods, and national and local economies in poor and rich countries alike.
Meanwhile, food safety hazards and antibiotic resistance are on the increase worldwide.
Globalization and climate change are redistributing pathogens, vectors, and hosts, and pandemic risks to humans caused by pathogens of animal origin present a major concern.
Changes wrought by human activity have created a vastly more complicated global disease landscape, states
World Livestock 2013
.
Ongoing population growth and poverty – coupled with inadequate health systems and sanitation infrastructure – remain major drivers in disease dynamics.
But in the push to produce more food, humans have carved out vast swaths of agricultural land in previously wild areas – putting themselves and their animals into contact with wildlife-borne diseases.
Meanwhile, greater numbers of human beings are on the move than ever before, and the volume of goods and products being traded internationally is at unprecedented levels – giving disease-causing organisms the ability to travel the globe with ease.
And climate fluctuation is having direct impacts on the environmental survival rate of disease agents, especially in warm and humid areas, while climate change influences the habitats of hosts, migration patterns and disease transmission dynamics.
“The many diverse diseases challenges discussed in this publication require greater attention to prevention,” argues
World Livestock 2013
. “A business-as-usual approach to risk management no longer suffices.”
To achieve this, FAO advocates the “One Health” approach – looking at the interplay between environmental factors, animal health, and human health and bringing human health professionals, veterinary specialists, sociologists, economists, and ecologists together to work on disease issues within a holistic framework.
FAO”s report identifies four main fronts for action: reducing poverty-driven endemic disease burdens in humans and livestock; addressing the biological threats driven by globalization and climate change; providing safer animal-source food from healthy livestock and agriculture; and preventing disease agents from jumping from wildlife to domestic animals and humans.
In particular, the UN agency says assembling better evidence on the drivers of animal disease must be top priority, and the resulting analyses must focus attention on improving risk assessment and prevention measures.
And there is a need for stronger mechanisms for the international exchange of information on animal diseases in general, as well as on best practices in livestock rearing and managing animal health risks, within a One Health framework.
